SAN JOSE — Marj Carpenter, moderator of the 207th General Assembly (1995) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was in Milledgeville, Ga., during the final, deciding vote by the Presbyterian Church in the United States to ratify the 1983 reunion. That vote came from the same presbytery in which the final vote was taken during the Civil War to split with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
That presbytery ˜ Hopewell in 1861-65, renamed Athens in 1880 ˜ was determined that the final decision to reunite would take place in the same location. Charlotte Presbytery, however, wanted that distinction. Both determined to outwait the other, resulting in a stalemate.
Carpenter was answering the phone in the church office in Milledgeville when someone from Charlotte called to check whether they had voted. She told them they were laying the tables for supper, they would continue into the night. That phone call broke the stalemate: Charlotte voted in favor of reunion, and the final presbytery voted for reunion in the same place where the final fracture had occurred 121 years earlier.
